* Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk> [2007-11-13 14:04+0000]
>
> >>>>> "PH" == Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> writes:
>
> >> Our Systems Team has fielded this request many times.
>
> PH> Its about time it bloody well listened, then.
>
> Yes.
>
> PH> By the way, the tone of the document [1] is extremely annoying. If the
> PH> W3C were a company taking this attitude, it would have lost its customer
> PH> base years ago. Of course, the W3C isn't a company: but y'all might give
> PH> some thought to the fact the great bulk of the W3C's work is done by
> PH> volunteers, who are the people getting screwed over by the Systems
> PH> Team's almost palpable arrogance.
>
>
> The document suggests that if W3C sticks with it's silly policy, then perhaps
> mail client developers will fix their clients.
>
> I think that the opposite is also true; if W3C is incapable of producing an
> mailing list which can be configured to their owners' wishes, rather than
> W3C's own dogma, we should perhaps move the mailing list elsewhere. I would
> rather see the effort invested in getting W3C to fix their broken policy than
> use workarounds which give them no incentive.
The implication here is that W3C is imposing unusual policies in an
effort to steer MUA development. I have many arguments against subject
tagging, but first, some statistics to show just how common it
is. Eliding W3C lists from my survey (as that would be a vapid proof),
I examined the 22 lists to which I am subscribed. I found:
5 lists that use subject tagging:
diggers@lists.csail.mit.eduemacs-nxml-mode@yahoogroups.comxml-dev@lists.xml.orgcsail-related@csail.mit.eduw3m-dev-en@mi.med.tohoku.ac.jp
3 lists that never use "Subject: [...]" for anything:
ietf-xml-mime@imc.orgmozilla-netlib@mozilla.orgtutorials@www2005.org
14 lists that use "Subject: [...]" for something else:
general@xml.apache.org apache-general-xml
csail-discuss@lists.csail.mit.edu csail-discuss
gargonza@asemantics.com gargonza
ietf-types@alvestrand.no ietf-xml-mime
jde@sunsite.dk jde
mysql@lists.mysql.com lists.mysql.com
internals@lists.mysql.comdev-tech-network@lists.mozilla.org mozilla-netlib
mozilla-rdf@mozilla.org mozilla-rdf
dev@httpd.apache.org new-httpd
perl-xml@listserv.ActiveState.com perl-xml
samba-announce@samba.org samba-announce
samba-docs@lists.samba.org samba-docs
dev@subversion.tigris.org subversion
The ones where [...] has other meanings are the most troubling as they
imply conflicts if one were to emply subject tagging. [announce] (or
some variant), [POLL], [vote], [PATCH], and [CLOSED] where the most
common uses for tagging (discounting boring ones added by the system
like {Re:...] and [Fwd:...]. Another conflict that my survey did not
detect was cross-posting.
I appreciate that there is the periodic need for a cost/benifit
analyis, but would be more sympathetic were the appeals for just that.
> Incidentally, I don't filter on subject line.
>
> Phil
--
-eric
office: +1.617.258.5741 NE43-344, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02144 USA
mobile: +1.617.599.3509
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